Beladran
Elite Cafe Member
Took in a job today that consumed basically my entire day!
Breaking out my soap box for a min...
Lady had a nice platinum ring. Fairly wide with a three stone head. Went from about 10mm at the head to about 2mm square at the bottom of the shank. Well at one time the top of the shanks was carved out at the top due to weight reduction, typical. Well it had worn thin and was dented up so she took it to some jeweler in Tenn when she lived there to have it fixed and the shank repaired and beefed up. Well they beefed it up alright! I was clueless of all the prior work until I took the ring to the laser welder and started to fill in a nasty scratch which she commissioned us to fix.. First zap exploded a hole big enough I could park my truck in! lol not really, all under magnification. Things went down hill fast after that. I thought well maybe its some low temp plat solder so I go to heat it back up to try and get it to flow again an the ring literally just stared oozing solder and wires... yes wires.. The prior guy had filled those carved out spots in the shank with gold wire then soldered them in. Layering wire on top of wire on top of wire. Had to have used ten penny weights of solder in this sucker. Gold solder at that. Called the customer and she explained the rings history to me and asked what her options was. Said I could take countless hours cleaning and cutting out all the gold solder out then building those cavities up on the laser OR I could cut that shank off right now and laser on a new solid platinum shank on it right now and be done with it in no time. She opted for that route. So in the end it went from a $55 job to $1200 job so I guess its a positive. Just really grinds my gears having to fix shoddy work done by some mickey mouse operation, and it seems like we keep seeing this sort of work at a troubling rate. I know lots of shops cannot swing the $$$$$ for a laser welder but for the love of god at least use platinum solder on platinum jewelry =(
OK.. rant over, time for a little crown and coke.
Breaking out my soap box for a min...
Lady had a nice platinum ring. Fairly wide with a three stone head. Went from about 10mm at the head to about 2mm square at the bottom of the shank. Well at one time the top of the shanks was carved out at the top due to weight reduction, typical. Well it had worn thin and was dented up so she took it to some jeweler in Tenn when she lived there to have it fixed and the shank repaired and beefed up. Well they beefed it up alright! I was clueless of all the prior work until I took the ring to the laser welder and started to fill in a nasty scratch which she commissioned us to fix.. First zap exploded a hole big enough I could park my truck in! lol not really, all under magnification. Things went down hill fast after that. I thought well maybe its some low temp plat solder so I go to heat it back up to try and get it to flow again an the ring literally just stared oozing solder and wires... yes wires.. The prior guy had filled those carved out spots in the shank with gold wire then soldered them in. Layering wire on top of wire on top of wire. Had to have used ten penny weights of solder in this sucker. Gold solder at that. Called the customer and she explained the rings history to me and asked what her options was. Said I could take countless hours cleaning and cutting out all the gold solder out then building those cavities up on the laser OR I could cut that shank off right now and laser on a new solid platinum shank on it right now and be done with it in no time. She opted for that route. So in the end it went from a $55 job to $1200 job so I guess its a positive. Just really grinds my gears having to fix shoddy work done by some mickey mouse operation, and it seems like we keep seeing this sort of work at a troubling rate. I know lots of shops cannot swing the $$$$$ for a laser welder but for the love of god at least use platinum solder on platinum jewelry =(
OK.. rant over, time for a little crown and coke.
